Broadband, YouTube, a New Laptop and Film Making - An Historical Reflection on Transitioning from Dialup Internet

Ibis Skater Evolved, Bin Chicken to Skateboard Pro,
Evolution of a Bird by TET. Available from RedBubble

Prior to getting broadband internet access I, like many of you, only had dialup internet, and for the most part was happy with it. I never experienced the speed of broadband until the day our house switched to it. I could never have imagined just how much more the internet had to offer and the possibilities that would arise from that simple change.

I thought that because I didn't download a lot of video that I didn't really need broadband. I now realise that I didn't download a lot of video because I didn't have broadband.

Discovering YouTube has been like having someone finally stop choking you so you can really enjoy a breath of fresh air. Just browsing the video clips is better than watching real free to air television.

Many of the clips are made by average, everyday people who's best chance of ever getting on TV would be as part of a studio audience. Some people star in their own films while others just upload snippets of their lives. Maybe it was something stupid they happened to catch on a mobile phone camera or maybe it was something serious like a missile attack in Lebanon.

Ages span the generations with young and old alike uploading videos. I know of one senior citizen who is retelling his life experiences from world war II. His channel on YouTube is one of the most subscribed with comments and feedback from all ages who are eager to hear what he has to say. He is overwhelmed and emotional knowing that so many people feel that his story is important.

For me, finally getting a new laptop with enough power to record video has been a real boost for my creativity. If 'convergence' is the technology buzzword of the moment then convergence has finally happened for me.

I've never been just one kind of artist, because of that, film making has always been something I'd like to do. I've been involved in at least two film making courses but never could take them further because I couldn't really afford the equipment. Now I can because I have broadband, YouTube, a new laptop, a web cam, a digital camera, a microphone and, most importantly, editing software that can bring everything together into a movie.

I can be a writer, director, producer, and even star of my own films. Catching up with technology has opened up a new channel of my creativity that has been stifled for so long. Whilst my early films will probably be mostly about me I will eventually stop navel gazing and make films that have a story or something like that.

I look forward to creating films that I hope you will enjoy.

Comments

Jack Nicholson, Anger Management and The Joker

I was watching the Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler movie, Anger Management on DVD and I got to thinking just how good an actor Jack Nicholson is. That's no big revelation really. I'm fairly certain Jack's won a number of awards for his work over the years. However I'll continue on. On the special features of the Anger Management DVD someone comments that almost everyone has a Jack Nicholson impression, because Jack's voice is unmistakably his. Team Jack's voice with the man himself and you have a living icon that few people in the western world would fail to recognise. When you go to see a movie with Jack Nicholson, as soon as he appears you instantly recognise him as Jack, yet, in every single movie I've ever seen him in, he immediately becomes the character. You're no longer watching Jack Nicholson. I particularly like his character, the unorthodox anger management therapist, Dr Buddy Rydell, in Anger Management. Nobody plays a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde char...

Movie Opinion: The Michael Keaton Batman Trilogy - Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), The Flash (2023)

The Michael Keaton Batman Trilogy on DVD. Despite its questionable CGI, troubled star, and the turmoil surrounding the DCEU's future when it was released, 2023's, The Flash does give us a new, and probably final, installment in Michael Keaton's run as Bruce Wayne/Batman. With that in mind, this holiday season, I had a real itch to spend a day binge watching what is now The Michael Keaton, Batman Trilogy . To give you some context, I own every Batman movie (except Pattinson's The Batman ) on DVD, and every DCEU movie up to The Flash. The ones I don't own are only missing because I haven't gotten around to buying them, and they're likely still available on a streaming service I'm subscribed to. I've had Keaton's first two Batman movies in my collection for the best part of two decades but I can count on one hand how many times I've watched each. The last time was more than a decade ago. Before I watched them recently, if you'd have asked...

Movie Opinion: Let's Talk About Indiana Jones Movies (Probably Spoilers)

I love the character of Indiana Jones played by Harrison Ford. Recently I bought a DVD box set of all four Indiana Jones movies so I could finally have them in my film collection. With Indiana Jones 5 ramping up production, and set to be released in 2021 (after being pushed back from 2020) it seems like a good time to look back at the previous four films. I won't be reviewing each film. Chances are, if you're reading this, you've either seen them, or decided not to see them based upon the reviews when they were released. I just had some thoughts about each film for discussion.

Australian Federal Election 2025 - World's Most Boring Government Re-elected by Landside - We're Even More Fine!

Anthony Albanese Victory by ChatGPT and TET. W hen I started writing about the 2025 Federal election the polls were suggesting the world's most boring government was crusing to a defeat . As it turns out, boring is good, and Australia wants more of it, handing the current government a landslide win with a majority vote. Anthony Albanese became the first PM since John Howard to win a consecutive term, and the first Labor PM since Bob Hawke to do so. Some of that comes down to the leadership revolving door both major parties had through the mid 2000s. Although Anthony is my preferred PM over Dutton the irony is Dutton sounds more like a leader with a fairly commanding voice and an ability to speak well, without sounding like he's waffling and dodging questions, even if he is. Anthony, on the other hand, does have the ability (and speech writer) to say a lot of inspiring things but it gets lost in the delivery. He doesn't seem to know when to emphasise a point for effect. In h...

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...

TV Series Review: 12 Monkeys (2015 - Season 1 ) Spoiler Free

Being a fan of the 1995, Terry Gilliam movie, Twelve Monkeys , when I discovered SyFy channel had adapted it into a TV series, 12 Monkeys , I was interested to see how that would pan out. Although the show has been aired in Australia on free to air TV (I'm pretty sure I've seen it listed there at ridiculous hours on occasion), it's only recently that the first two seasons were added to Australian Netflix. So I added it to my list of shows to watch. This article is not so much a review of the show, rather it's my thoughts on adapting to the TV version after being a big fan of the film. At this point, I've only seen all of season one and the first episode of season two. Going into the TV series I literally went in cold, not knowing anything about the approach to this adaptation from pre-publicity or trailers beforehand. I didn't really have any expectations other than wondering if the show would stick to the movie plot lines closely and, if they did, how w...

Tesla Unveils Optimus Robot Prototype and Second Generation Prototype - Movie, iRobot, May Be a Documentary?

Tesla Optimus Prototype One, Development Platform. September 30th finally rolled around along with Tesla A.I. day and the unveiling of not one but two Tesla Optimus Robot prototypes. Which was quite a bonus since we hadn't heard anything much about these robots when I wrote about them in July of 2022. Before revealing the first prototype, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, made a point of managing everyone's expectations, just in case anyone was thinking they were about to see anything close to the actual human concept 'robot' we saw last year. I honestly don't think anyone was expecting that. Prototype One - Development Platform The prototype that walked out on stage, for the very first time without ever being tethered to anything (apparently), was still incredibly impressive despite not being streamlined and highly refined in its capability. It walked quite well - eerily similar to the first generation robots in the 2004, Will Smith movie, iRobot , and even did a bit of a dan...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog